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Monday, September 30, 2013

Turkish and Egyptian ultras fight for their existence

Much like the Muslim Brotherhood, militant soccer fans in
Egypt and Turkey are fighting for their existence.

Turkish police raided the homes of and arrested 72 militant
supporters of Istanbul’s top clubs – Besiktas JK, Fenerbahce FC and Galatasaray
SK -- after a derby between Besiktas and Galatasary was abandoned because fans
invade the pitch. Penalizing Besiktas, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF)
ordered the club to play its next four games behind closed doors.

Critics of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan suspect that
his ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) engineered the incident in a bid
to further repress Besiktas’ popular militant fan group, Carsi that played a
key role in mass anti-government protests earlier this year. They point to the
fact security was lax at the match and that a youth leader of the AKP boasted
on Facebook how he had obtained a free ticket to the Besiktas Galatasary derby
and was one of the first to invade the pitch.

Turkish journalist Mehmet Baransu moreover documented links
between 1453 Kartallari (1453 Eagles), a rival conservative Besiktas support
group named in commemoration of the year that Ottoman Sultan Fatih the Conqueror
drove the Byzantines out of Constantinople, and the AKP. 1453 members reportedly
shouted ‘God is Great’ and attacked Carsi supporters during the pitch invasion.

The incident has strengthened the government’s hands in
discussion with world soccer governor FIFA and European soccer body UEFA over
the replacement of private security companies with regular police in stadia. FIFA
and UEFA as of matter of principle favor a low key police presence in stadia. The
move is part of an effort by Mr. Erdogan to gain control of and depoliticize
Turkish soccer and criminalize fan groups in response to the key role they
played in mass anti-government protests in June. Carsi lead the unification of
Istanbul’s rival fan groups who constituted the front line in confrontations
with the police.

The government has since banned the chanting of political
slogans during matches and has said it was monitoring the communications of
militant fans. It further is enforcing Breathalyzer tests at matches and
demanding that clubs oblige spectators to sign a statement pledging to abide by
the ban before they enter a stadium.

Fans have defied the ban by chanting during matches “Everywhere
is Taksim, everywhere is resistance," a reference to Istanbul’s iconic
Taksim Square, which was the focal point of the protests sparked by plans to
turn Gezi Park which abuts the square into a shopping mall.

Strengthening the government’s campaign, Besiktas president
Fikret Orman criticized the performance of a private security firm hired for
ten matches in Istanbul’s Ataturk Olympic Stadium because the club’s own
facility is under renovation. “Private security does not run away from the
fans, they chase them. What we witnessed amounted to a comedy,” Mr. Orman said.
He said that fans had entered the stadium without tickets. Up to 10,000 were
believed to have entered the already packed stadium illegally.

Sports and youth ministry official Mehmet Baykan said “three
entry points were broken into, the power supply to the turnstiles and eight
ticket readers were sabotaged. 65 people have been caught with equipment which
could have been used to cut the cables."

Aware that the protests had reduced Istanbul’s chance of winning
the hosting of the 2020 Olympic Games despite long being a frontrunner,
government officials prepared the ground for blaming the activists for the
Turkish capital’s loss. The protests were a major reason why the International
Olympic Committee awarded the tournament earlier this month to Tokyo. Turkish EU
minister Egemen Bagis warned that “those who protested at Taksim's Gezi Park
tried twice to drop Istanbul’s candidacy off the candidates list, but they
failed. If Istanbul loses, it will be because of them.’’ Mr. Bagis’ comment was
in response the anti-government protests and a report by Turkish activists,
architects and urban planners calling on the IOC not to award the games to
Istanbul.

“Prosecutors and courts continue to use terrorism laws to
prosecute and prolong incarceration of thousands of Kurdish political activists,
human rights defenders, students, journalists and trade unionists… Free speech
and media remain restricted and there have been serious violations of fair
trial rights. Great obstacles remain in securing justice for victims of abuses
by police, military and state officials. … Press members are fired, contracts
of academicians who supported Gezi are not renewed, film stars are searched for
narcotics, and students are arbitrarily detained… The powers of the Chambers of
Engineers and Architects were curbed. This was a reprisal for their role” in
the protests the report said.

The report noted that police had used tear gas and water
cannons earlier this year during protests at the opening of the Mediterranean
Games in Mersin in southeastern Turkey. It asserted that 80 percent of the tickets
for the event were awarded to government loyalists rather than to the public to
prevent potential protests against Mr. Erdogan who was scheduled to attend the
opening. Mr. Erdogan was booed during the 2010 World Basketball Championship
finals in Istanbul and the 2011 opening of the Turk Telekom Arena stadium in
the Turkish capital.

In a similar development, Egyptian officials are discussing
how to deal with the ultras, militant soccer fans who played a key role in the
toppling in 2011 of President Hosni Mubarak as well as in post-Mubarak protests
against the military. State-owned Al Ahram newspaper, long a mouthpiece for the
government, recently asked: “Will the Ultras be shown the red card after
crossing the red line? Are they digging their own grave? … Football Ultras of
soccer powerhouse Egyptian clubs Ahli and Zamalek have become a dangerous
phenomenon… These days the Ultras are a symbol of destruction, attacking the
opposition and sometimes their own kind,” the paper said.

The paper’s focus on the Ultras follows a series of
incidents in which supporters of storied Cairo clubs Al Ahli SC and Al Zamalek
SC attacked their clubs and players, demanding resignation of company
officials. Zamalek chairman Mamdouh Abbas rejected the calls for him to step
down, saying that he would only leave his post if club members adopted a motion
of confidence, not in response to the “terror of the Ultras”. Abbas urged the
military-backed government to take action against the Ultras White Knights
(UWK), the militant Zamalek support group, whom he denounced as sports
terrorists.

UWK buries one of their own

Thousands of Zamalek fans last week buried one of their
members killed by security forces while trying to storm the club’s
headquarters. The attempted storming occurred after Zamalek lost an African
Championship match to its rival Al Ahli. ”The safe exit of the club’s board of
directors after the blood of fans has been shed became impossible,” the UWK
said in a statement. At the same time relations deteriorated between Ultras
Ahlawy, the Al Ahli support group, and players who rejected conciliatory
gestures by the fans.

Relations have long been strained between the ultras and
players because the militants see them as mercenaries who play for the
highest-paying club and resent the fact that they largely remained at best
aloof during the anti-Mubarak protests because of the perks the regime granted
them. Five Al Ahli players - Ahmed Fathi, Sherif Ikrami, Abdallah Al-Said,
Shehab Ahmed and Sherif Abdel-Fadil —recently launched a campaign against the
ultras following failed attempts in the past to moderate fan militancy.
Relations improved briefly last year after 74 Ahli supporters died in a
politically-loaded brawl in the stadium of Port Said. The players’ current
campaign portrays the ultras as a threat to their safety and security.

The players as well as club officials charge that the
ultras’ militancy is hurting them economically at a time that clubs are
struggling financially as a result of reduced sponsorship, advertising and
ticket sales because league matches have been suspended for much of the almost
three years since the anti-Mubarak protests erupted. Professional soccer
matches are scheduled to resume in October.

Arrest of UWK militant

In a frontal attack on the ultras who pride themselves on
their financial independence, officials of Al Ahli and Zamalek suggested that
they were being funded by third parties and challenged them to make their
finances public. “Now it is not only firecrackers but also bird shot that is
being used in attacking us. They don’t spend money on tickets anymore but spend
it to destroy the club,” Mr. Abbas said. Al Ahram noted that the ultras “spend
much money on their trips buying tickets and firecrackers and other tools to
support the teams. Their social background doesn’t show that they have that
kind of money. Their main income comes from selling T-shirts.”

Major General Talaat Tantawi, a retired military
officer-turned security consultant, charged that the ultras much like their
counterparts in Argentina were being manipulated by groups seeking to exploit
their popularity. “It is so easy to
penetrate these groups and make use of their enthusiasm and youth. They have
become easy targets to achieve political goals and to distract them from
focusing on their main vision and mission which was supporting sports. Others
joined in and became Ultras and are acting as we see now,” Mr. Tantawi said
ignoring the fact that the ultras were politicized and steeled in years of
confrontations with security forces during the Mubarak era.

James M. Dorsey
is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,
co-director of the University of Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and the
author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer
blog.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile